Current Projects

FOOD INSECURITY – WEST BENGALStories of hunger are shared by community members through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and advisory board meetings. This project aims to identify the underlying problems that result in food insecurity and seeking to work toward grassroots solutions that address these underlying problems.

FOREIGN CONSTRUCTION WORKERS – SINGAPORE Low-wage migrant workers in the construction industry form a vulnerable segment of Singapore’s population. This group faces many problems, including adjustment to a foreign environment, poor living conditions, and exploitation by employers. These problems lead to a whole host of health issues such as inaccessibility to health care. This research aims to create opportunities to work with foreign construction workers to solve the health issues that they face. Problems are identified and solutions are developed by migrant workers themselves.

FOREIGN DOMESTIC WORKERS – SINGAPOREWe engage foreign domestic workers (FDW) in dialogue via in-depth interviews and focus groups in order to co-construct their experiences of living and working in Singapore, especially in the context of health and health care. These experiences will help to open up participatory spaces in national discourse, so that relevant policies and interventions can be developed.

HEART HEALTH – SINGAPORE This project engages groups in Singapore who are especially vulnerable to cardiovascular disease to highlight the voices of the community in developing culturally-centered health promotion methods and materials.

MSM & HIV-PREVENTION – SINGAPORE The lived sexual experiences of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Singapore form the basis of culturally-grounded knowledge which will be used to develop relevant, community-based interventions for HIV prevention and safe sex promotion.

WOMEN FARMERS & CLIMATE CHANGE – INDIAAlthough several studies argue that small-scale poor rural agriculture women farmers are most vulnerable to climate change, and therefore need to adapt urgently, few studies seek to explore how women farmers perceive climate change, and what adaptation strategies they prefer. Working with Deccan Development Society women farmers collectives, called Sanghams, this project seeks to foreground women farmer’s experiences and solutions to climate crisis. This project acknowledges the important role that traditional knowledge can play to adapt to the climate and developmental crisis.

TRANSGENDER SEX WORKERS – SINGAPORE There are limited communication interventions that are serving the transgender community, especially in the context of Singapore. Despite some prevention programs that have proven to be effective for some, many of such programs are not sustainable due to their top-down approach. This project aims to engage the local transgender sex workers to identify the health problems they experience and to develop interventions that correspond to their health needs.

MEANINGS OF HEALTH – SINGAPORE Health meanings emerge from the lived experiences of the individual as he/she navigates through socio-structural constraints. These individual meanings of health become key information in revealing a localised, alternative understanding of health in the community. The main outcome of this research is to create avenues and develop solutions for more equitable health outcomes in such marginalised communities. Currently, CARE is reaching out to the invisible poor in Singapore to understand their lived experiences of food insecurity and the impact on their health. The team organises a monthly food distribution with resources from the various NGOs that we collaborate with.